Tonight I went with two friends from our St. Vincent de Paul society to a talk at Mount Mary College about Racism and Catholic Church. Actually the talk was called “Unconscious Racial Bias and the Challenge of Solidarity: Catholic Social Justice Post Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and . . .” The unconscious cultural racism was important to me. In recent years I have become aware of racism around me, from eliminating the basketball rims when African Americans started to use the courts to racial discrimination of local St. Vincent de Paul Society that got me recently suspended. Once your eyes are opening it is frightening. Solidarity with African Americans becomes nature for what you are seeing is experience every day by African Americans.

Yes, racism has become a taboo word every time I brought it up at meetings about the basketball courts and the location of St. Vincent de Paul thrift store in white, high income neighborhood where it is not needed, rather than in black, low income neighborhood where it is needed.

Racism is deep in our society and will take more than change of laws and regulation to get out. We all need to dig deep in our hearts and soul and become aware of our own ‘unconscious’ racism. It will take heart to heart dialogs, which we got a taste of tonight, before much it done.

I hope I have courage to continue with message of racism, something people do not want to hear. I had one small victory today when after hours and hours of talks with Att we were able to restore her basic phone services. This struggle was a good example of the struggle to overcome ‘unconscious’ cultural racism

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